SharpKeys 3.5

SharpKeys is a Registry hack that is used to make certain keys on a keyboard act like other keys. For example, if you accidentally hit Caps Lock often, you could use this utility to map Caps Lock to a Shift key or even turn it off completely. This official release includes support for up to 104 mappings, an extensive list of available keys, and a “Type Key” option to help when managing mappings. As it relies on internal support within Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, or Windows 7, you must be running one of these OS’s for this Registry hack to work.

With the move to version 3.5, the code now compiled against the 4.0 version of the .NET Framework. The source code on Codeplex has been updated to reflect this change, so the developer community can actively pick up the change and continue enhance and support SharpKeys. My hope is that the list of available keys will grow to include more international options and that other random asked-for features get added as people require them. I will continue to host a copy of 3.0 and 3.5 but I still ask that all support requests go through Codeplex – this will allow other people to help with new features, going forward.

Hi Randy. I have a broken “f” key on my keyboard and rather than losing my computer for a couple of weeks to servicing, am considering just remapping the keys if possible. Does your program support remapping my “f” key to some other key such as the “tab” key? thanks

I would really like to remap my AltGr key (Finnish/Swedish keyboard layout), but typing it in SharpKey results in “You pressed: (E0_2038)” and then “You’ve entered a key that SharpKeys doesn’t know about. Please check the SharpKeys website for an updated release”.

Neat program! But, how do I map a key with modifiers to something? In other words, for example, I want to map CTRL-UpArrow to PgUp. When I try typing the CTRL-UpArrow, it says “You hit Left Control” then I hit the Up Arrow (while holding Control) and it changes to “You hit Up Arrow.” But how do I get the Up Arrow modified by the Control?

I was wondering if it’s possible to create sort of like a profile with this. What I mean is when I’m using a certain program, I could use all the remapped keys, but when I’m doing something else I could have the keys back to normal.

Is it possible to switch back and forth, or would I have to remap the keys everytime?

@sv – not really – the Registry setting is applied to the whole machine and then a reboot is required for changes to take hold… best I could recommend is using RegEdit to export your different settings and apply them as you need them, rebooting as you change them.

One suggestion for us Lenovo Thinkpad lovers. The blue “ThinkVantage” button is not recognized by SharpKeys. If you could incorporate it in your next version, I would be grateful and I think the users on the Lenovo forums would certainly appreciate it as well.

@Janet – it sounds like you have a defective keyboard; I’m not sure the remapping keys will help the situation for you.

@Thinkpad – the issues with the ThinkVantage and Fn buttons is that they are hardware keys. The hardware never passes the keypress onto Windows there’s no way for Windows to remap it. I know this because I wrote the original bits on a T60p, then migrated to a T61p and then X301. First hand experiences, in this case :)

Oh, and Alt works, but not like you think. See the FAQ on that. Not sure why F10 wouldn’t work – that should be the same as any F key… that might be a bug. As I’m not actively working on the code base, it would be best to report that to the folks at CodePlex.

Hi There, I tried to use sharp keys to swap round the keys on my wired apple keyboard that I have bought to use on windows 7. The particular keys that are the wrong way round are @ and ” keys but when I used sharpkeys the number 2 ended up on the ‘ key?? Any chance of explaining how to do this??

@Mark – per the FAQ, we remap the WHOLE key. So you can’t put the 2 of 2|@ on one key and the @ on another. The whole key goes.

@David – Sure, but be warned: if you remap any key that you use to sign in with or something that is used for a password you will not be able to sign in anymore. The key is remapped for everything. So, if you were going to prank someone by changing every key on the keyboard to be a Q, that’s all the PC will *ever* type.

Hi, I am using a mac keyboard on my pc (because this is the best keyboard). there are a coupla keys on the mac keyboard that don’t correspond to my laptop (asus) keyboard. can i use your program to modify just the mac keyboard output ? or will your program modify the asus keyboard as well ? thank you very much,

This program would be way more useful with the option to save various setups. I understand that I’d have to relog after switching, but I have 3 sets that I use for different programs, and manually setting them up every time is a pain.

my son downloaded this app to his computer, then changed some of the keys but not all of the keys. now, he is locked out of his computer as he cant type in his password since some of the keys he needs now dont exist. is there anything he can do? he needs to undo this program- but he cant log in. thanks

The only thing that he can try is booting to Safe Mode, run SharpKeys and remove all the mappings. Uninstalling the app won’t fix a thing: the app exposes a Registry Key that Windows uses to remap the keys…

Just clarifying as I have an even older Logitech with USB and ps2 -connectors (wireless receiver).. Also getting 57344, even though some of the keys work. Did you connect the keyboard to a USB or PS2 on the motherboard?

On my laptop keyboard turning the wireless net on/off is assigned to F2. I tried to remap that key but a message saying that the key is not recognised appeared. Any assistance on this would be much appreciated. Thanks.

@Hugo – as is mentioned in the FAQ, media keys aren’t standard across all PC’s… it all depends on how the keyboard deals with them and what it decides to pass onto Windows. If Windows doesn’t get them, there’s no way for them to be remapped with SharpKeys.

I have at some time changed the keyboard assignment for the Caps Lock to require Caps Lock + Scroll Lock to activate/deactivate permanent Caps Lock.

I did this via a registry file (.reg) which I acquired somewhere from the internet. It also had an undo .reg file.

I now have a new keyboard which doesn’t have a Scroll Lock key. I have lost/misplaced the original .reg files so I am unable to activate the Caps Lock. Shift key works OK but is a nuisance when wanting to type all Caps.

I’ve tried a couple of the “key tweak” programs from Googling but none seem to help.

Can you help? I am OK with making changes to the registry but don’t know where to find the key assignments section or what to change.

Hi Randy, I’m paralysed from the shoulders down and unable to move my fingers.

When I’m in my wheelchair I’m able to move my arms enough to type with my knuckles. To control the mouse I use Mouse Keys [Ease Of Access Centre]. With the latter the user is required to choose whether Mouse Keys functions with Num Lock on or off: I set it to off. When I’m in bed I’m unable to use my arms so I use speech recognition [the one built into Windows Vista]. On the whole this works very well, but Num Lock frequently turns on without my command and that prevents speech recognition from working properly. This is a constant nuisance.

I’m completely non-technical so I don’t want to mess around with the registry without guidance. I would value your advice.

Given that speech recognition requires Num Lock to be off and Mouse Keys requires it to be either on or off, I need Num Lock to be constantly in the off position, ie. it can’t be neutralised. Is there a way of doing that with SharpKeys?

@Michael – the ALT key has trouble in the Type Key window: you have to select it in the list without using Type Key.

@Krys – It should be possible: I turn off Caps Lock all the time and Num Lock should be no different. That said, the best way to test this would be to set it, make sure Num Lock is off, and then reboot. Additionally, you’ll want to make sure that Num Lock isn’t turned on as part of the boot process of the machine… once Num Lock is disabled, you will never be able to toggle its state.

Great program. While using my computer today, my keyboard suddenly started acting funny. the letter J would fullscreen the browser and f would refresh the page. Using SmartKeys (and its press a button feature) i realised that when i press f11, it says ive pressed J, for f5 it says ive pressed f and a few other keys (z->f1 etc).

I need to do a lot of data entry on the numeric keypad, including many presses of the space bar. As you know there is no ‘space’ key on the numeric keypad part of a keyboard.

So I had the idea of remapping the right arrow key which falls just under my right thumb to be a ‘space’ key. However, here is the question – I only want this remapping to be in effect if NumLock is enabled. (NumLock enabled means I am using the keypad.) When I turn off NumLock, I would like the right arrow key to function normally as a right arrow key again.

Is this possible with SharpKeys or with any other remap utility you know of?

Hi AltGr haters, inconvenient default mapping of AltGr can be improved. I want to enter AltGr-characters with left and right Windows keys, and have a normal Alt key at the right of the space bar. SharpKeys is currently unable to understand 3-byte E0_2038, but it works with E0_38. Here are the mappings:

trying to invert the top number keys on my keyboard but with a twist. I would like the to do a 9->2,2->0,0->3,3->9 combination. it seems no matter what combination I put these in, the still come out 9->2,2->9,0->3,3->0. all the other keys were simple 1 to 1 switch. How (can) I get this to work the way I would like it to work?

in microsoft word 2007, i have a document that i have in 2 columns and when i go to tab it and then i press the left arrow key to go to the beginning of that line it automatically goes down the page. it didn’t do that on my old computer. i would like it to stop doing it for all of microsoft word. is there any way u could help me?

Can you actually map the space bar to another key? I’ve tried numerous different keys (Left Alt, Right Ctrl, Up arrow) but none seem to work. I’m doing cause my spacebar broke after some… melted… ice cream… could this affect whether I can map the key?

One question. Ive been trying to assign a key to the “Sleep” function. However, once the button is assigned to sleep, nothing happens when I press the button. Ive tried it with different keys, and none of them put the computer to sleep. Any idea what is going on or how to fix it?

I’m trying to do something that I’m not sure is possible with your tool; I want to map “ctrl + alt + -” to the Windows unicode command for outputting an em-dash, alt+0151. I can’t seem to map multiple keypresses to anything, however. It just seems to be a one-one remap. Am I missing something, or is SharpKeys not going to work with this?

Randy – I remapped my Application key to Pause, so that Ctrl+Application = Ctrl+Break. Works great! Thanks! I use this to break into my code module in Microsoft Access when an error message pops up.

Today I was using Remote Desktop to run an Access app on another machine, and I noticed that my Ctrl+Application sequence didn’t work. I assumed that when using Remote Desktop, that the key settings would be based on the remote machine’s registry, and that Remote Desktop would send the mapped key sequence, not the physical keys pressed. Is that not the case?

So it seems I’m stuck here in that, even though I was able to get a Break key on my computer using your program (thanks again!) I’m still stuck when using Remote Desktop to access another computer. Any suggestions?

@Neil – It would depend on what gets sent to the Remote Desktop… I know that sounds odd but when you hit the Windows key on RDC, it works on the local box unless the RDC window is full screen… same thing is likely happening here…

@David – Please shoot all feature request to the community at CodePlex: there’s not active dev going on here…

What registry key/keys are modified by SharpKeys? If I wished to undo all the custom key mappings could I simply delete the modified registry key or would I do something different? I know I can undo them in SharpKeys, but I am wondering in case something goes terribly wrong. Thanks.

I got this program so I could physically swap my 789 and 123 keys on my numpad, so that it’s like a phone’s keypad. Well before I took the keys off, I wanted to make sure this works. Well I ran into a problem. I want to SWAP the 789 and 123 keys. So far all I can seem to do is make the 789 into 123 or vice versa, meaning I’ll have duplicates of those keys. How do you swap keys? Making separate entries but reversed does not work. For instance, the 7 key to the 1 key AND the 1 key to the 7 key, you can’t have both of those entries. How do I do it? Thanks.

While playing poker for small stakes, we accountants very much like to type in bet amounts using the numeric keypad. However, some non-English poker site uses the comma rather than the period to delimit dollars from cents. To bet $1.10, I have to type “1,1” rather that “1.1”. Of course, it is hard to type “1,1” on a standard keyboard with one hand. On this site, it does not parse the period if I use the numeric keypad.

Ahem. Long story short. I am very happy to use your program to remap numeric dot to comma. However, I have to change this back once I’m done using my poker program. So, I was hoping you could tell us how, or include in your program an option to export the change to a reg file, so I could either double click one to switch, and another to switch back, or, I’d probably wrap those toggles around my executable in a batch file or something.

There could be two issues… it sounds like you might want one key to fire two keystrokes, but I could misunderstanding that… if you *are* trying to do that, it’s something SharpKeys can’t help you with.

However, if you are trying to just remap keys, based on the screen shot you’ve sent, you are mapping Backspace to Caps Lock and Space to Caps Lock… the way you’d want to do this is put the key you want to be remapped on the left and the key you want it to act like on the right. So if you want Caps Lock to be treated as Backspace, put Caps Lock on the left and Backspace on the right, save the settings and reboot.

I have 2 Wireless keyboards, A & B. I just like to remap some keys in Keyboard A. However, Keyboard B should be default and should not be impacted by changes in Keyboard A. Can this be done with the program? Thanks

There could be two issues… it sounds like you might want one key to fire two keystrokes, but I could misunderstanding that… if you *are* trying to do that, it’s something SharpKeys can’t help you with.

I must have misunderstood the site that redirected me here then because that’s what I thought it could do.

No biggy. I just remapped the backspace to and I have fed the word doc.

I’m using Synergy with my Macbook Pro setup as Server, and Win 7 D830 setup as the client. I am using an Apple wired keyboard. When I run SharpKeys 3.5, I setup the F13 key as FROM (detected by actually pressing the F13 key on my Apple keyboard) being mapped To PrtScn, and F16 as FROM (detected as Unknown 00_67) To Calculator. I Write to Registry, close, then reboot. When I get back to my Windows desktop, I hit the F16 button, expecting the Calculator to pop up, but nothing happens. I hit F13 and then open MSPaint and hit Ctrl+V and nothing gets pasted.

Hi Randy – your application saved me when a key failed on my personal laptop – instead of having to replace the entire keyboard, I was able to remap that key to the Windows key (which I never used) and I was back in business.

I just got a new company laptop and I find myself ALWAYS hitting “Fn+c” and “Fn+c” when I’m trying to cut and paste (correct keys being “Ctrl+c” & “Ctrl+v”) because this particular manufacturer has placed the Fn key to the left of the left Ctrl where my hands expect the correct key to be. I would like to flip-flop the Fn and Ctrl keys.

My IT guy says he’s willing to let me use SharpKeys on my corporate laptop if I can answer two questions:

1) If another Windows user logs in, are the keys re-mapped for them too? (In other words, do the settings go into the USER or MACHINE area of the registry?)

2) Are there any issues (license or cost implications) with this being used on a single company/corporate machine?

Hi again Randy – I just read all the above posts and I think I found one of my answers:

February 24, 2012 at 10:39 PM by Randy – the Registry setting is applied to the whole machine

So I would wager all users are affected.

Plus it seems I’d be out of luck mapping a Fn key anyway (I have a T430s Thinkpad) and you posted…

March 20, 2012 at 11:24 PM by Randy – the issues with the ThinkVantage and Fn buttons is that they are hardware keys. The hardware never passes the keypress onto Windows there’s no way for Windows to remap it.

But if you can confirm my thoughts and also answer the question above re: company/corporate use, that would be good to know.

@Jim – it’s free for anyone to use be it personal or business usage. Just as a reminder, though, that I’m not responsible of you remap a key and can’t sign into your box anymore (i.e. you turn off a key that you need for your password).

And yes, I’m pretty sure that the setting apply to all users on a box.

Hi Randy, may I ask a question regarding on how can we change the shift+2 to make a symbol @. I have a problem of my OS, after I installed it I got an incorrect key pair it supposed to be 2/@ but I have 2/” instead. And when I use the ‘/” I’m having this ‘/@. I’m tried to read all the comments of all of your commentators here but seems like no one had ever experience this kind of problem except me “I think” My I have question about how can I use this program to put these keys into their correct places? What are the corresponding codes I can read or use in your sharpkey & make it into the proper places where it should belongs, kindly tell me what to do… pls?

I had a broken M key that I reassigned to [. Only problem was that I assigned it in reverse and my password has an M in it. Hence I can’t log on, even with a different keyboard. I can get to the registry from the win 7 repair tool. What registry entry do I change to revert to normal mapping?

The Alt and PrtSc buttons on my Creative Prodikeys keyboard went on strike, and yesterday I was ready to bin the whole thing. But thanks to SharpKeys, the previously untouched Application and Right Ctrl have stepped up and now I can screencap and Save To Web to my heart’s content. Thank you Randy, and thank you SharpKeys!

Will there be any support in the future for the ever-elusive Mac Eject key? I’m using a fullsize Apple M7803 keyboard in place of my PC laptop keyboard, and the defunct eject key is located next to the volume controls, perfect for being a play/pause key!

Thank you for this program. I used the windows keyboard layout program but its not compatible to Windows 7 and buggy everywhere so i had to uninstall it. Now your program works, but i cant use Alt Gr and Key or Shift and Key, which are the two main Interests for me to set additional signs and letters that i frequently use but are not on the normal german keyboard layout. Any plans on adding them soon?

My Dell laptop has no pause/break key, and I need one. I was hoping to use your program to map it to an existing key, but pause/break doesn’t seem to be in the list of available keys to map from. I’m thinking that SmartKeys is probably scanning my existing keys to make that list, and since it doesn’t physically exist it gets excluded. Is there any way to make it work?

@Mr. Grogg: sadly, no. The Fn key on most keyboards is a hardware key, which means Windows never even gets the signal that the key was pressed. A good example of this is on notebook keyboards where NumLock is an Fn+some other key… on Lenovo it’s Fn+ScrLk. I can remap NumLock through windows but it has no idea that the Fn key was pressed…

But I’m not looking to map a function key. It’s the pause/break key. I’ve never seen a keyboard where that exists on a function key. (I did discover that using the onscreen keyboard in the accessibility options I was able to get the job done that I had to do. But in the future it would be nice if I could have SmartKeys up and running with the mapping already set so that i don’t have to hunt down the onscreen keyboard again.)

Ah, that’s a different problem. Pause/Break is a bizarre key in that it’s passed into Windows differently on different keyboards. On my Lenovo boxes it comes in as NumLock. On other keyboards it’s a double byte code. Bit of a bugger, that.

Hey, are there any plans on porting this over to Windows 8 RT for the Surface? I think if it’s in .NET it should be pretty painless (but my understanding of programming ended with BASIC). I’d love to be able to remap my bluetooth keyboard paired with my Surface the same way I remapped it for my regular laptop.

Aside from that, I know that the onscreen keyboard for Surface ignores the remapping but a regular keyboard should respect it. To that end, the app would have to edit the Registry and modern Windows 8 apps have no access to that… it would have to install to the classic desktop env which I don’t think the app store supports.

Why exactly can’t you swap 2 keys – like Q and Z? Is it because Windows would remap Q to Z, then try to remap Z to Q which doesn’t exist anymore? This is a Windows limitation, right? That means the competitor products wouldn’t be able to swap keys either.

What about a larger circular combination – like remap RightCtrl to RightWindows, remap RightWindows to RightAlt, and remap RightAlt to RightCtrl – would that work?

I need to enter times in Excel. The colon key slows me down because it is shifted and located on the alphabetic section. If I could reassign it to the END key, my data entry would be faster. Does Sharpkeys handle the shift?

@Mike – actually, with SharpKeys, you cannot do this. The remap that SharpKeys exposes moves the whole key, rather than just the shifted part of a key… you’ll want something like AutoHotKeys which is more of a macro program…

@James – since F6 and F3 are supposed to be available to applications, I’m betting Gateway is treating them special in the hardware, which is why Windows doesn’t recognize the keys… not much to be done there but you might want to try AutoHotKeys.

@MBTY – I would pass that along to the people at Codeplex. SharpKeys has been open source for a couple of years now…

Hey Randy. Does this program work with Windows 8 or are you working on something that does? My BF likes to play video games on his laptop and he just got a new one that will not allow him to use the f1-f12 keys while in game. When he uses them it forces him to go back to windows desktop to perform the keys windows function.

Can I map the FN key? I have a Toshiba A215-S5837 laptop that I had to restore. When I press the FN key, it crashes the laptop instantly. Toshiba once had a flashcards update to resolve this issuie, but it is no longer posted on their website. How do I map the FN key, and which key is it in the mapping list? Thanks

Running into a minor problem with unsupported keys. I keep getting told to check your website to see if an update is available.

I’m using a (technically tablet) bluetooth keyboard for the lazy, on-lap, approach at my desk while typing. I like the keyboard, but instead of an Escape key, it has a key which launches the default web browser. When attempting to add via “Type Key” the result is that I pressed “(00_100)”. I would like to map this to Escape, obviously, but it won’t let me force it even though it’s what I really, really want to do.

Could you add support for “your on your own, don’t blow up the world” keys?

The function key does not work on my keyboard. Someone suggested key mapping and when I used Google to find software, I found RandyRants. I’ve installed 2 versions and the problem is, I can’t find an option (code) for the function key. I wish to reassign the shortcut menu key to be the function key. Is this doable?

..tried but did not work.. i dont know if i im dumb.. just want to remap my space bar to eitherleft arrow key since its closer,on my laptop since the space bar is busted.,(windowsXP/32/SP3), thanks anyways randy..thought i found a solution but its,worth a try.. right now im using OSK just to get a space bar…done all instructions and needed downloadables from microsoft..im going crazy..and youre last activity here is three months from now…zzZZzz

My kids spilled tea on the laptop keyboard so I found your program to try to recover them. At first I thought it wouldn’t work when I mapped the keys that don’t work to the replacement keys and nothing happened. I had to map the keys backward to get things working.

to control my dj-software i bought a wireless keyboard, because it’s smaller than midi controllers and i can also type the name of the tracks i want to search. with your app i wanted to remap the multimedia keys on the upper part of the keyboard to load and scroll through the tracks (see image http://i00.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/612/858/432/432858612_054.jpg). the upper right arrow-keys are recognized, but the rest of the upper panel (11 multimedia keys, excluding 2 non mappable mouse-keys) are recognized always with the same key: 00_100 (not like the fn-key, which isn’t recognized at all). do i have a remote chance to remap those keys somehow, may be with another app (or even hack) or am i missing something?

since i need it for work and the layout of the keyboard is perfect for my purposes i would also pay someone to write a script or whatever to make it work.

I have a problem when remapping Macbook Air integrated keyboard under Windows (bootcamp). I would like to remap CMD key to right Alt and turn off original right alt.

When I push CMD at “From key” I get “Special Right Windows (E5_5C)”. It’s ok. Then I type “To key” (by pushing right Alt) I get info “You pressed (E0_2038)”. When I push “OK” I get the message “You’ve entered a key that SK doesn’t know about”.

I have been using this program for a while, Thanks for making it, Hopefully you can keep on updating it when/if neccessary for many years to come. May we never have to physically remove a caps lock key again!

Lately every time my pc gets too hot my Z key gets stuck internally and it looks like it just keeps pressing itself. It can really be a bitch to work with. I was wondering, if I install sharpkeys and disable the Z key, so it wouldn’t use itself on my internal keyboard, would I still be able to use my Z key on an external keyboard?

Honestly? I have no idea :) I know that the change is supposed to be system wide but I don’t know if it extends to USB keyboards. One suggestion before you try it: make sure you don’t have a Z in your password before you disable it.

Looked for a way to PM you with a request for Sharp Keys if it’s possible. The good thing about me being unable to find a way to do it privately, is I ran across the Paypay link and sent you $20 since Sharp Keys has been so helpful to my World of Warcraft habit, and the fact that I mouse lefty.

The keys I needed to remap to play the game efficiently have been PrtScr, Scroll Lock and NumLock (actually, I can’t remember if I was able to overwrite Numlock too, since I ended up removing that keycap on my old Logitech G15.

That block of keys (plus the F12, Backspace and “\” key are perfect for gaming, particularly with the space in between them which helps fit my hand better than keys clustered in the middle of the keyboard. Of course, the fly in the ointment is the key that would be SO useful, if it could be remapped: PauseBreak.

Is there any way this key could be included in Sharp Keys? I just bought a new keyboard, with removable key caps so I could attempt to use the more common alphanumeric keys. But my hand cramps, and the lack of convenient demarcation between keys makes this option a clumsy and distant second to repurposing the keys on the right side of the keyboard.

If PauseBreak is still the dragon that can’t be slain, so be it. Love SharpKeys and thanks for making the keyboard more gaming friendly!

In honestly, I’m not doing any active development since I pushed the source out to Codeplex, but I remember from the earlier days that remapping PauseBreak wasn’t viable with this tech. Something about it being a triple byte code and/or that it was sent directly to Windows down a different path of code meant that it was a key that I left off the list. That said, you may be able to use something like AutoHotKeys to remap this one key since it is an active re-mapping tool whereas SharpKeys just exposes the remappings that Windows natively supports.

I´ve used SharpKeys all my life on any hungarian PC and laptop so: I´ve remapped Enter to F1 and DEL to F2, without any problems. This way I can work much faster. Now I´m on a german Win7 PC and wanted to do the same thing, but unfortunately after setting it up and logging out, I couldn´t log in any more, because DEL (for the CTRL+ALT+DEL) was simply not functioning. Luckily the IT guy was here and could solve the problem, but I still want to remap these keys. Can you help me with this please? Thank you very much!

Maybe I wasn´t clear enough: the IT guy could solve the problem that I could login to windows, but after that I had to uninstall sharpkeys because the two buttons were absolutely not functioning. Thank you.

Installing or uninstalling doesn’t change anything around remapping: it’s simply a front end to a Registry key that Windows uses to remap keys. Your IT guy did something else to unblock you besides just uninstalling SharpKeys; my guess is that he was able to boot to safe mode and remove the Registry setting.

Anyway, I don’t have any real guidance for the German keyboard as I don’t have one but I can offer the suggestion that if you remap a key, I recommend doing it on the PC you’re planning to use since the layout of keyboards are different country to country. SharpKeys won’t disable or remap anything that it isn’t told to change but if the keyboard layout changes underneath it, there could be some confusing results which is what you bumped into.

All that aside, if that’s still a problem, you might want to use an active remapper like AutoHotKeys, since that will run along side your apps/games instead of letting Windows remap it.

I tried to change the ‘scrollLock’ key with your program sharpkeys to the value ‘@’ as another program blocks that key at the normal position.
It don’t work. I get the information ‘you pressed (E0_1F10) – you entered a key that aharpkeys don’t know’.

Nope: @ is not a key but a combination of Shift+2 [on a US keyboard]. There is no way to remap half the key. You can remap 2 and then Shift+2 will work. That said, Scroll Lock is a “stateful” key so depending on your keyboard it might also be challenged. I know on a regular keyboard, I can remap CapsLock with no trouble – which is also aware of its state – but some keyboard make treat it as a hardware key…

Thank your for the answer. On a german keyboard @ ist the combination AltGr+q. I never use the key Scroll Lock, that is the reason to choose it. So I must look for a program with which I can assign any ASCII code to any key (if such a program exists).

My keyboard has a key that has been driving me crazy! It is a second (unwanted) key with \ and |. The usual one is on the right near the Enter key. The second one is immediately to the right of the keyboard’s left Shift key, which is narrower than usual to make space for the additional \| key. I was CONSTANTLY hitting it by mistake when I wanted the left-shift key. Thank you SOOOO much for allowing me to fix this!

I’m wondering if it is in any way possible to add a new key?
See, my keyboard has the misfortune of not having a numpad (or even numlock). Usually laptops will have an Fn numpad, requiring you to hold Fn and press the keys around J for numpad numbers.
This doesn’t work for me though, and I was hoping to add this functionality but sharpkeys seems to only change existing keys into other existing keys. I also don’t have a context menu key and do not see it in the “to this key” menu, unless I just don’t recognise it.

My ESC key of my keyboard is not functioning, pressing it does nothing. Now I want to remap my ESC key to a other key I dont use. I started the program. Added the new mapping my manualy selecting the ESC key in the list and also selected the new key. Pressed ok en let the registery writing do its thing. After reboot the ESC key is not remapped to the new key since when I press this new key it keeps its old function and is thus not working as ESC key….

Sounds like it’s been set up right but it’s possible that ESC could be a special key in terms of Windows. Like it’s getting trapped in the subsystem and not being passed along. Could be that this is a non-remappable key.

I think lots of people only use this for remapping the Caps Lock key, since it’s a key that some people just see as a key to avoid when hitting Shift. I do use it, but rarely, so maybe another utility just for that key would be useful. Please consider one that utilizes the repeat key timing to allow the user to, rather than disable the Caps Lock completely, making it a double tap, or one that you have to hold down for some time to toggle it.

Another thought: for small utilities like this, I’d like to avoid an install and have just a small portable executable that I can keep on a thumb drive.

Sharpkeys is one “helluva” software, thank you for writing it!
It worked for me pretty much 100% (unitil now:)
I got my hands on Armor X7, 7″ rugged tablet PC. Originally It came with WIN7pro. I updated it to win 10 to stay in touch, and now I have three dead function buttons.
If you would find the time I would very much appreciate if you add tablet keys to the library:
P1(E0_73), P2(E0_74), P3(E0_75), Fn+P1(E0_76), Fn+P2(E0_77), Fn+P3(E0_78)

Your tool is cool and all, but I’m having a problem with it.
My keyboard’s media keys have some weird scancodes that are not detected by yours or other registry-based remapping softwares. In SharpKeys it just says 00_100 for all of them.
Here are the four I’m trying to tamper with (scancodes: 172 [Home], 180 [Email], 174[Volume down], 175[Volume up]; virtual keys 0xAC, 0xB4, 0xAE, 0xAF, respectively).
I did some digging around, and they’re apparently a different kind of scancode, that’s either ‘artificial’, ‘reserved’ or spawned from some USB/PS2 switcheroo? I don’t know, the info I gathered is pretty sparse.
Right now I managed to circumvent it and achieve what I wanted to do somewhat (remapping the useless Email and Home keys to be a second pair of volume controls) using Autohotkey, but it has its problems.
Are they just not reachable via Windows registry? I tried remapping them manually with regedit, but got stumped on the scancodes ids (i.e. AF,XX,B4,XX), not sure what to put in the XX part, that’s usually either 00 or E0 for normal keys, I tried both, neither worked.

It is a very useful tool, but I have problems with a key that shows 00_100 and this key is not supported.
I trying entering to regedit and see what is the change I need to do.
I reached the following key.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout\Scancode Map
What I noticed is the values you select are stored swapped for example:
From: App: Calculator (E0_21)
To: App: Media Select (E0_6D)
The key in windows register is
0000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0008 02 00 00 00 6D E0 21 E0
0010 00 00 00 00

As you can see, we have to wirte the key code in addresses 0x000C to 0x000F
We can write 4 nibbles for each key (6D E0 21 E0) it addresses the key I want o change (App calculator and Media Select)
My question is how must I write 5 nibbles for only one key (00_100)?
Thank you
Best Regards

Thanks for for creating this program! I write for a living and recently bought a new laptop. The placement of certain keys was creating issues for me and screwing with my productivity. Your program overcame the problem and made me love my new laptop even more. Thank you! I’m happy to send a donation your way. I hope other people will too. It’s not often these days that people offer their help for free!

Just because it doesn’t say that on the first run:
Works with (on my desktop) Windows 10 Home too.

One thingy:
On a my high resolution screen 1920×1080 it was difficult to find the Caps-lock
within the too tight lines. Maybe you consider an extra section
especially for that lousy key I suppose most people hate as me and are only in for…

hi. the program worked for me as intended. my esc key doesn’t work, so i remapped it to right ctrl. it works fine in lord of the rings online, but not in fallout 3. any fix for this? does fallout 3 handle keys in a different way, bypassing windows somehow?

Yes. If a game is not respecting the remapping it’s because they are getting keystrokes and not passing them along to Windows. Games do this most often but some apps do this as well. You might want to try AutoHotKeys which does a more active method of remapping.

Odd and likely completely unrelated. SharpKeys is an application with no services, doesn’t change anything related to the boot process, and doesn’t even run unless you launch it. Additionally, its sole purpose is to modify a Registry key that Windows then uses to remap the keys. Overall, Notepad has a bigger chance of causing a BSOD than SharpKeys does, especially since this is the first report of this type of issue since 2004.

Hopefully you can boot to the recovery process and revert back to a recent system recovery point.

Because the .NET Framework has been built into Windows since version 8 and a ton of people have it installed on Windows 7 and Vista. If you had to install a version of the Framework, I wonder if you grabbed the wrong install package or if I have to recompile to support a new version of .NET. FWIW, It makes the code far easier to write and maintain because Strings and Registry access are first class objects. Also, the Windows Forms classes at the time are far more advanced than using the old Dialog editor that I think hasn’t been updated in Visual Studio since 2002.

I mean, in truth, people don’t even need the app and can just edit the Registry directly, but having the list of keys makes it worth it…

Thanks for this. My new Dell Latitude e7450 (nice laptop – thin, light, and fast) had (very oddly) been designed so to use the HOME and END keys I had to press a FN key, then the left or right arrow?! Yet 2 keys that most people never use anymore “PrtScr” (ok, some might use this if they don’t have a better program like Jing or Snippet) and “Insert” (which I remember being helpful a couple of times in the 80’s!).

Now I have “Home” and “End” remapped to the PrtScr and Insert just to the left of the “Delete” key where they should be. Even works with modifiers so that Ctrl+remapped “Home” is like “Go to very beginning of document” and Ctrl+remapped “End” goes to the very end.

I am looking for a program that will disable or force my Numlock key to be ALWAYS on! I downloaded this program & see how disable it off but I don’t see a way to force it always to be always on (IE Disable on). Is there something I am missing?

Hey, Randy. Great little program. I wanted to remap my laptop’s Fn key to the show desktop link, but I ran into two problems. One, Sharpkeys does not recognize my Fn key. Two, if it did, there’s no show desktop link in the remapping list.

I saw the Fn key in the list, but remapping that to any key revealed that the list’s Fn key does not correspond to my laptop’s. I’m aware there are shortcuts for this already (like Win+D, although I feel Windows keys are the devil and have remapped them to do innocuous things) so I could settle for a different key…maybe tilde.

Randy, I own a Windows 10 desktop PC with a lighted, wired Logitech keyboard. My finger numbness causes me to partially press the Control key when I mean to press only the Shift key. As a result I’m constantly activating weird, strange computer functions and often closing the active window, which trashes all my work.

Will this program allow me to relocate the Control key function to a rarely used alternative key – such as the (`~) key or Caps Lock key? I have lost so much work that I’m ready to let out a primal scream! It even happened to me as I wrote this message. Uugggghhhhhh! Help!!!!!!

Yes.
– Disable the Left Control key
– Remap the Caps Lock key to Right Control (since the Left one is disabled)

If it must be the Left Control key, then you might have to remap Caps Lock first and then disable the Ctrl key OR do it in the opposite order. I don’t remember which way Windows enforces the rules. Also, if you have a hardware based Caps Lock light indicator, it may or may not stop working with Caps Lock remapped. It should but hardware can get weird.

Randy, it worked like a charm! I have one active Control key on the right with the left one disabled. Now, if only I could stop hitting the wrong alpha keys with my numb fingers all would be perfect. Thanks again!!

NumLock is a strange key because it’s got hardware and BIOS settings behind it. It could be that you can force it on and then disable the button or by disabling the button it turns off the functionality. I think it will depend on the PC or you might be able to disable it with something like AutoHotKeys or something. Sorry I don’t have much more information :(

You should be able to fix that by changing all values of InitialKeyboardIndicators to 2 (if they were between 0 and 7) or 2147483650 (if they were a big number) in the registry. To do that, you press windows + R and type “regedit”, then press Ctrl + F and search for “InitialKeyboardIndicators”.
This means that the numlock key will be on by default when the computer is restarted. You might also have to turn off fastboot in Windows 8 or 10 for this to work.

Uh, I don’t have a download button. I have two links way that the top of this post: one for MSI and one for ZIP. I also have a Software page, above the start of the post on the menu at the top. That will also have text links for the MSI installer or the standalone ZIP for SharpKeys.

Seems like Windows 10 supports many keys currently not registered in the app, even some that look like are already there, such as App:E-mail and whatnot.. when I press the E-mail button on my keyboard, it maps to some other key not recognized by SharpKeys.
Would you update the app to include these new keys or have the ability to capture any key when pressed in the ‘Type Key’ feature?

I cannot. There already is a standard Windows mapping for “mail” that should be getting to Windows. If it’s not getting to SharpKeys, then it’s not getting to Windows, meaning that a driver has been installed to intercept the command. Not much I can do for that – sorry!

Randy,
I recently installed SharpKeys 3.5 and appreciate its simple interface. Mapping the Function Keys is wonderful, but I really to need to disable or remap the Power key on my Kensington keyboard. I frequently hit it by accident, shutting down my computer. My OS is Windows 7 Home 64-bit. Other than using a sticky-note to cap the Power key, do you have any suggestions? Thank you.

In the control panel, there is a heading called Power Options. Click it, and on the upper left there is a link called “Change what the power buttons do”. Once in there, change “When I press the power button” from “Shutdown” to “Do nothing”, and click “Save changes”.

I wanted to map the Pause/Break to the Delete key, but Pause/Break got acknowledged as
Special: Num Lock (00_45)

Hmmm … you can guess what was the result when I hit the Num Lock key several times on a List Control! I did it several times looking at its light instead of looking to the screen because it was not activating itself.

thank you so much for these program.
do you have an option for(only when the numlock(for exemple) is disabled or enabled?
(why the question!?! i lose my Down arrow key(isn’t working). so i need change the numeric 5 to do it(instead use the normal numeric 2). but these must be happen only when the numlock is disabled.
thanks for all

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